Well. It’s
been a bit of a year, in terms of veggie gardening. I guess you can’t win them
all. The spring was confusing, with record highs, then normal cold temps, up
and down. It was the hottest July on record; we’ve had several violent storms, including
one massive hailstorm. All during a drought. It’s not ideal. Our apple CSA was
cancelled for lack of a harvest.
Add to that
the damn varmints. Something is eating my large tomatoes. On the vine. Even the
green ones. My very promising peach tree started out with 60 peaches. I finally
brought in the last three green ones, in a fit of spite. I put out extra water
bowls (we always have two filled birdbaths) hoping that that would help stop
the destruction. It didn’t. The vine stem borers are slowing killing my
zucchini. A total of 2 zukes harvested to date.
N put up a
fence. Today I saw a baby bunny inside the fence. I think it’s keeping out
exactly 0% of the animals. But it makes it harder to weed and harvest, so there’s
that.
Behind the
garage I started out with 4 melons, 4 pumpkins, and 4 winter squash. I’m down
to one acorn squash plant. The others were trampled. What kind of jerk opossum
or chaotic evil raccoon do you have to be to do that?
We moved the
green beans. Turns out it’s not as sunny as we thought in the new location.
Getting some decent yields now, but not like last year.
But to focus
on the positive, I have a decent-sized cantaloupe hanging on the vine. One Red
Rome apple left (all 6 Honey Crisps were eaten by squirrels). I’ve got some
potatoes, and I didn’t even plant any this year. The peppers have finally set
fruit. The carrots and radishes did well. Oh! And I grew daikon radishes for
the first time, which was fun. Have also harvested a few cukes. Enough for two
batches of pickles.
However, the
real plus this year is the various neighbors I’ve been trading with. I got Egyptian walking onions (a perennial! woo!), some big zucchini, and a bunch of cukes. I handed out fresh basil,
oregano, parsley, and pole bean seeds. I still have some. Wanna trade?
